THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COOPERATIVE MARKETING IN INDIA (Pages 01-08) by Dr. M. Amaravathi in THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER / ISSN: 2348-9413 (Online); 2348-9405 (Print)

Agricultural marketing in India is one of the manifold problems which has direct bearing upon the prosperity of the cultivator individually and the country as a whole, as primary occupation of more than 80 per cent of the population in India is agriculture. Agricultural marketing in its widest sense comprises all the operations involved in the movement of food grains and raw-material from the field to the centers of market. It includes the handling of the produce at the farm, initial processing, grading and packing in order to maintain the intrinsic quality and to avoid wastage. The present system of the marketing of agricultural produce in India is extremely defective and need a through overhauling. The defective agricultural marketing in existence and the part played by the trader, trader cum money lender, who commands the money, credit, market and commands even the transport that has left no place to the agriculturist of his choice to sell away the produce at the right price or to bargain for a fair price, as most of them are enclave in the clutches of the trader cum money lender.Agricultural marketing in India is one of the manifold problems which has direct bearing upon the prosperity of the cultivator individually and the country as a whole, as primary occupation of more than 80 per cent of the population in India is agriculture. Agricultural marketing in its widest sense comprises all the operations involved in the movement of food grains and raw-material from the field to the centers of market. It includes the handling of the produce at the farm, initial processing, grading and packing in order to maintain the intrinsic quality and to avoid wastage. The present system of the marketing of agricultural produce in India is extremely defective and need a through overhauling. The defective agricultural marketing in existence and the part played by the trader, trader cum money lender, who commands the money, credit, market and commands even the transport that has left no place to the agriculturist of his choice to sell away the produce at the right price or to bargain for a fair price, as most of them are enclave in the clutches of the trader cum money lender.Keywords: Agricultural marketing, manifold problems, cultivator individually, intrinsic quality etc.